What I aim to do here is to provide a brief guide to the studios, giving a description of the house styles of each plus a few notable films to emerge from them. Please remember, this site is for revision purposes only and is not intended to replace your own knowledge and research!!
MGM
-MGM dominated Hollywood throughout the 1930's and 1940's, and was largely controlled by directors and producers.
- specialised in A class star vehicles for the first run movie market.
- the studio became famed for producing lavish musicals, historical romances as well as gangster movies and film noir.
Notable film: The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming, 1939)
C20th Fox
- during the 1920's and 1930's, Fox held a monopoly on the image of their most famous child star Shirley Temple, meaning that the studio could effectively use it to control the distributor's choice of films.
- during the post war years, Fox was one of the first studios to use location shooting for its films.
- the studio produced mainly musicals and westerns.
Notable film - The Grapes of Wrath (John Ford, 1940)
RKO
- despite producing low budget B movies and low key film noirs, RKO became known as the "studio without style", often employing expressionistic methods of lighting to conceal lack of budget.
Notable film: perhaps the most famous film to emerge from this now defunct studio is Citizen Kane (1941), rather ambitiously written, produced and directed by Orson Welles, who also starred in it!
Warner Bros.
- made cinematic history by producing the first ever "talkie" - that is, a film with sound - in Al Jolson's famous 1927 vehicle, The Jazz Singer. Whilst this introduced sound to American films, sound enabling technology didn't reach Britain until Alfred Hitchcock's 1929 film Blackmail.
- specialised in genre films such as gangster, comedy/drama and musicals, including a number of big budget costume dramas.
- from 1930 onwards, the studio focused on producing genres as the biopic, melodrama and the film noir.
- WB's stars also tended to be genre specific, ie.
Bette Davis = melodrama
James Cagney = musical (ie. Footlight Parade) and later made gangster films (ie. Public Enemy)
Humphrey Bogart = gangster/film noir (ie. the Maltese Falcon and Casablanca)
Notable film: The Public Enemy (William Wellman, 1931)
Paramount
- produced thrillers and film noir
- Billy Wilder (Double Indemnity) is among the architects of the studio's style
- Wilder is particularly noted for producing noirs during the 1940's, inkeeping with the uncertainties of the times whilst displaying a darker side to the studio's house style.
- during the 1990's, the studio merged with Viacom which aided its resurgence after fading during the 1960's.
Notable films: The Lost Weekend (Billy Wilder, 1945)
Rear Window (Alfred Hitchcock, 1954)